I have been wondering why there are no scenarios that tell the events that occurred on the Tau Ceti colony. Perhaps having the player as one of the other cyborgs. My conclusion is that someone must have thought about this and made one, I just can't find it.

If I recall correctly there is a scenario called "Keep the Home Fires Burning" you start off on Tau Ceti during the initial invasion, its a really good attempt at trying to create an actual colony, although AFTER this level the game's story goes off the rails and enters bizarro world.

Campaign becomes nuts but its certainly something different. What I'm trying to say is that Tau Ceti is great but its unfortunately not the main focus.

Please go through with what you're secretly planning. Please create a scenario depicting the other 9 Cyborg's struggles.

You actually made me smile. Of course I've thought about it, but there's no way I could pull that off. I've never released a map and I won't delude myself into thinking the first one could be something as ambitious as that. Someone with the proper skill set should give it a go. I think there is a lot of untapped potential in that side of the storyline.

Anyway, I can't find "Keep the Home Fires Burning". Apparently Google does not know Marathon exists, and I can't do anything without Google.

In any case, well, it would be interesting to see a game centered around Tau Ceti.

Like most scenario ideas this idea requires better technology. The main part of any Tau Ceti game would have to be the enslavement and experimentation. Humans beings being pushed onto dropships, families being separated, human beings being fed Pfhor feces just so the Pfhor can find out how long a human could survive on such a diet, they need to make creating scenarios easier.

Shocktart wrote:Like most scenario ideas this idea requires better technology. The main part of any Tau Ceti game would have to be the enslavement and experimentation. Humans beings being pushed onto dropships, families being separated, human beings being fed Pfhor feces just so the Pfhor can find out how long a human could survive on such a diet, they need to make creating scenarios easier.

I think all that's required is the know-how to tell a particular story given a particular set of limitations. Marathon tells a pretty deep story without relying on tech.

Come to think of it, there's two sides to a Marathon scenario: gameplay and storyline. More than in modern games, these two are very loosely connected through terminal text and the story happens inside the player's head instead of the game's world. As far as the engine is concerned, this is a game about nothing more than running around shooting aliens.

I had plans once, back when I made plans, to have an Eternal prequel of sorts with this as the setting, wherein you would play as either Hathor (who was one of the nine Battleroids on the Tau Ceti colony), or as Marcus (the player-character of the main trilogy, and Eternal) in an alternate timeline preceding Marathon 1 from Marcus's subjective perspective. It would have involved discovering the Jjaro ruins underground on Tau Ceti and interfacing with them to try to save the colony from its inevitable destruction three months after M1's end, jumping back in time to try alternate approaches, ending with another jump back in time and Marcus boarding the shuttle Miriata to leave the colony before the Pfhor's arrival, so that he would survive the colony's destruction at least, leading to the events of the Marathon trilogy as we know them.

Shocktart wrote:Like most scenario ideas this idea requires better technology. The main part of any Tau Ceti game would have to be the enslavement and experimentation. Humans beings being pushed onto dropships, families being separated, human beings being fed Pfhor feces just so the Pfhor can find out how long a human could survive on such a diet, they need to make creating scenarios easier.

There's no reason such a story can't be conveyed using the current engine. Between terminal text, terminal pictures, chapter screens, and manual text, there aren't many stories you can't tell. While there may be gameplay you can't have, you can always connect the story to the gameplay. Just look at what the trilogy did with story using its limited engine.

I think the Tau Ceti prequel idea has probably crossed the mind of many fans. Once the game mentions that there are 9 other cyborgs down on the surface, you can't help but think about it. And yes, it would be cool to see.

Too bad there aren't more fans hungry for co-op, because my idea was that this would be the perfect opportunity for a unique scenario with a difficulty level designed for 8-player co-op. While I think doing an 8-player scenario would be a lost cause, I think doing at least one map would be worthwhile. Unless of course lua could be used to curb or multiply the number of monsters based on the number of players. Then such a scenario might actually be worth doing.

Pfhorrest wrote:Marcus (the player-character of the main trilogy, and Eternal)

Pfhorrest wrote:Marcus (the player-character of the main trilogy, and Eternal)

I assume you mean only in Eternal.

The character is only given that name in Eternal, but it's the same character.

Read that if you like as "the player-character of the main trilogy (and of Eternal, who though unnamed in the former is called 'Marcus' in the latter and thus would also have been called that name in this hypothetical prequel to it)".

Pfhorrest wrote:I had plans once, back when I made plans, to have an Eternal prequel of sorts with this as the setting, wherein you would play as either Hathor (who was one of the nine Battleroids on the Tau Ceti colony), or as Marcus (the player-character of the main trilogy, and Eternal) in an alternate timeline preceding Marathon 1 from Marcus's subjective perspective. It would have involved discovering the Jjaro ruins underground on Tau Ceti and interfacing with them to try to save the colony from its inevitable destruction three months after M1's end, jumping back in time to try alternate approaches, ending with another jump back in time and Marcus boarding the shuttle Miriata to leave the colony before the Pfhor's arrival, so that he would survive the colony's destruction at least, leading to the events of the Marathon trilogy as we know them.

You have some serious skill coming up with interesting narratives. If Eternal had been a Marathon novel I'd have flipped its pages to dust by now.